Wang Xudong, Dean of the Palace Museum. He used to be the president and party secretary of Dunhuang Research Institute, mainly engaged in the protection of grottoes, ancient murals and earthen sites, as well as the monitoring, early warning and preventive protection of cultural heritage. Since he was engaged in the protection of cultural relics in 1991, he has presided over the completion of more than 60 national key cultural relics protection and maintenance projects, undertaken nearly 20 national and provincial-level projects, published 6 monographs such as Research on Key Technologies for the Protection of Earth Sites and Research on Ancient Murals, won more than 10 national, provincial-level scientific and technological awards, and was awarded many honorary titles such as "National Excellent Scientific and Technological Workers" and "Top-notch Innovative Talents in Propaganda and Cultural System", and was selected as one of the national 10 million talents projects.
Forbidden city architecture. Photo courtesy of the Palace Museum
Digital duobaoge Photo courtesy of the Palace Museum
editorial comment/note
In order to thoroughly study and implement the cultural thoughts of the Supreme Leader, conscientiously implement the spirit of the national conference on propaganda and ideological and cultural work, and implement the spirit of the important speech delivered by the General Secretary of the Supreme Leader at the forum on cultural inheritance and development, the "Hundred Forums on Core Values" co-sponsored by Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Education Bureau and Guangming Daily planned a series of lectures around the theme of cultural inheritance and development. This forum came to the Palace Museum to deeply explore the value of the world cultural heritage of the Palace Museum and systematically explain the new meaning of Chinese culture. This lecture is the final work of this series.
At the symposium on cultural inheritance and development, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader emphasized that it is our new cultural mission in the new era to continue to promote cultural prosperity, build a cultural power and build a modern civilization of the Chinese nation at a new starting point. We should strengthen our cultural self-confidence, take on the mission, work hard, make joint efforts to create a new culture belonging to our time and build a modern civilization of the Chinese nation.
As a world cultural heritage, the Forbidden City is the carrier of Chinese civilization for more than 5,000 years, the gathering place of Chinese excellent traditional culture and the witness of multicultural exchange and integration. Its unique material and cultural heritage fully demonstrates the outstanding continuity, innovation, unity, inclusiveness and peace of Chinese civilization.
More than 600 years of palaces and more than 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.
The Forbidden City, once the "Forbidden City", was a royal palace building in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The Forbidden City was built in 1420, with a history of more than 600 years. It is the epitome of ancient palace architecture in China and the intellectual creation of ancient working people in China. This palace not only embodies our cultural tradition, but also embodies the wisdom accumulated by Chinese in the process of its own development and dealing with the relationship between man and nature and between man and society.
The Forbidden City, with a history of more than 600 years, needs to be understood in the process of the emergence and development of civilization. The planning for the construction of the Forbidden City is deeply influenced by Zhou Li Kao Gong Ji, which shows the principles of capital construction that have been followed since ancient times. Kao Gong Ji was written in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and Zhou Li was added in the Western Han Dynasty, which became one of the Confucian classics. Its construction order and planning ideas such as "choosing neutral palace" and "ritual system" reflected the value orientation of China traditional culture for more than 5,000 years. In the planning structure stipulated in Kao Gong Ji, the core point is that the palace is the center of the city, so the planning of Beijing city is centered around the palace, that is, the Forbidden City. After the construction of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Beijing is centered on the Forbidden City, and the walls of Miyagi, Inner City and Outer City are interlocking and square, and the Forbidden City shows the grand momentum of "within the country" under the contrast of the walls. The Forbidden City not only inherited the traditional triple city system, but also attached the ancient layout such as "Zuo Zu You She", "Front and Back Bedding" and "Five Doors and Three Dynasties", which reflected the ideal pursuit of Confucianism and became the highest existing model in the development history of ancient Miyagi in China.
The design concept of the Forbidden City reflects the idea of "neutralization" pursued by the ancients in China. There is a saying in the Book of Rites, The Doctrine of the Mean: "Those who are moderate are also the foundation of the world; He who is in harmony will achieve the Tao in the world. To be neutral, the status of heaven is awkward, and everything is nurtured. " General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out that Chinese culture advocates harmony, and China’s "harmony" culture has a long history, which contains the cosmology of harmony between man and nature, the international view of harmony among all nations, the social view of harmony but difference, and the moral view of kindness among people. After thousands of years of development and accumulation, "neutralization" has gradually sublimated into philosophy, aesthetics and even ethics, and has increasingly become the core category and leading spirit of Chinese traditional culture, and this ideal pursuit of the Chinese nation is concentrated in the Forbidden City. The buildings in the Forbidden City are straight from north to south and symmetrical from left to right. The straight central axis runs through the meridian, and the first three halls and the last three palaces are evenly arranged on the central axis. The first three halls are the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Zhonghe and the Hall of Baohe, all of which have the word "harmony" in their names, which embodies the connotation of Chinese traditional culture as harmony between man and nature, social harmony and physical and mental harmony. Whether it is the first three halls of the outer court with the theme of "protecting harmony and harmony" and "seeking harmony",It is also the imperial palace and the third palace, which advocates the cooperation between Gankun and Thailand and the coexistence of all things. The way of neutralization of "keeping harmony in China" is the highest pursuit contained in it. In addition, the Forbidden City carries and carries forward the idea of neutralization, which was formed as early as the pre-Qin period and passed down in later generations, in a unique way and in a special language of the Chinese nation, from the plaque of "Allow to be in a trance" to the Zhonghe Shao music played at important ceremonies.
There are more than 1.86 million pieces of cultural relics in the Forbidden City, which span different historical periods from the Neolithic Age to the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties to modern times. They also bear the Chinese civilization, embody the spiritual core of Chinese excellent traditional culture, and also reflect the intellectual creation of working people. The source of these cultural relics, on the one hand, depends on the royal collection from generation to generation, and collects the cultural relics of the previous dynasty through the national power of the feudal dynasty; On the one hand, it is to collect from all aspects of society, gather the culture carried by cultural relics into the palace, and then transform the value carried by cultural relics into a culture that combines with the times. There is also one of the biggest sources of cultural relics, which is palace production. In order to meet the needs of their material life and spiritual life, emperors and dignitaries recruited craftsmen from all over the country to make a large number of articles with superb craftsmanship, which gave us a chance to see these exquisite productions today, and at the same time, through these cultural relics, we could understand the spiritual world, life pursuit and cultural interests of the ancients. Another source is the large-scale cultural projects and archives compiled in Ming and Qing Dynasties. For example, Yongle Dadian, Sikuquanshu, etc., have collected vast classical documents in history.
The Forbidden City is a place where multi-cultures merge. There are more than a dozen religious buildings and sites in the Forbidden City that embody Taoism, Buddhism and Shamanism, such as Qin ‘an Hall, Xianruo Hall, Yuhua Pavilion and Kunning Palace. The national language of the rulers of the Qing dynasty is Manchu; Before and after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, the tradition of alliance and marriage with Mongolian tribes was maintained. After the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, the main ethnic group in China was the Han nationality. Therefore, on the plaque hanging in the Forbidden City, you can see Manchu, Mongolian and Chinese. The court dress in Qing Dynasty is also the product of the long-term collision and blending of Manchu culture and Han culture.
In the Forbidden City, no matter from its ancient buildings or cultural relics, we can see that in the long history, different ethnic groups have merged and condensed together through culture, forming a big family of the Chinese nation that helps each other and forming a sense of community of the Chinese nation. At the same time, it is also in this process that Chinese culture can innovate and develop. When we come from history, we must look back and remember it, so that we can look at reality and face the future.
The cultural symbol of the Chinese nation and the physical witness of mutual learning of civilizations.
The Forbidden City is an important symbol of Chinese traditional culture and one of the most iconic symbols of China on the world stage. In the 600-year history of the Forbidden City, its connection with the world has never been interrupted. It can be seen from the collection of cultural relics in the Palace Museum that there are a large number of foreign cultural relics among more than 1.86 million cultural relics. In the long history, the Forbidden City can be said to be a witness to the integration of the world and mutual learning of civilizations.
Internationally, the national museum of Britain, the Metropolitan Museum of America, the Louvre Museum in France and other world-famous museums have a wide geographical distribution, and they collect a large number of cultural relics and treasures from all over the world. Different from them, the foreign cultural relics in the Forbidden City have a clear source and a clear vein. None of them are looted treasures, and most of them have entered the collection system of the Ming and Qing palaces as witnesses of peaceful and friendly exchanges between countries.
The Palace Museum has a collection of more than 1,500 Chinese and foreign clocks and watches, and their production dates range from the 18th century to the early 20th century. Among them, there are famous works from Britain, France, Switzerland and other countries, as well as fine works from the clock-making office in the Qing Dynasty and Guangzhou, and some products combining Chinese and western styles. Why are there so many "imported" clocks and watches in China court? At first, many of them were gifts brought by foreign missions or organizations. Later, a considerable number of them were "imperial clocks" independently manufactured by the Qing Palace Construction Office. In the 29th year of Wanli in Ming Dynasty (1601), Italian missionary Matteo Ricci presented clocks and watches as gifts for the first time to Emperor Wanli, and since then, a large number of exquisite clocks and watches have continuously entered the courts of Ming and Qing Dynasties. Yongzheng emperor in Qing Dynasty was not satisfied with simply using western timekeeping methods, but asked craftsmen to make "watches" that could tell the time during the day and play at night. With the help of westerners, craftsmen in the manufacturing office added devices such as setting and adjusting clocks to create clocks unique to China, so that they can adjust and determine the start, end and interval of each watch according to the length of the night of the 24 solar terms in a year, which perfectly combines the western mechanical device technology with the traditional way of telling time in China.
China porcelain is famous far and wide, and it was exported overseas in large quantities at the latest in the Tang Dynasty. However, many people may not know that the blue-and-white porcelain produced in the Yuan Dynasty to the early Ming Dynasty used an imported dye called "Su Ma Li Qing", the main component of which was cobalt oxide, which originated in Persia and was introduced to China in the Yuan Dynasty and began to be used for firing blue-and-white porcelain. In the Ming Dynasty, after Zheng He’s voyage to the West, he brought back a large amount of Su Ma Li Qing minerals to China, so Su Ma Li Qing was widely used for firing blue and white official kiln porcelain in Yongle and Xuande Dynasties. Later, domestic blue-and-white pigments gradually replaced Su Ma Li Qing, forming a new style different from imported materials.
In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, more and more western envoys and missionaries came to the Forbidden City. After entering China, these foreigners did as the Romans do, and actively adapted to and integrated into the social life at that time in all aspects such as food, clothing, housing and transportation. From Matteo Ricci, an Italian, to Beijing in 1601, for 237 consecutive years, westerners with professional skills served the Forbidden City. They were engaged in painting, clocks, medicine and other professional work in the palace. Many of the paintings in the Qing Dynasty were painted by western court painters. In the process of communication between Chinese and Western painters, European perspective painting and China’s pen and ink style are integrated, forming a new painting style combining Chinese and Western painting. Different from China’s ink freehand brushwork, the figures, flowers, birds, horses and elephants drawn by western painters such as Lang Shining, He Qingtai, Joseph Panzi and Wang Zhicheng are realistic and lifelike. Such as "Shaolu Tu", "Ben Lu Tu Zhou" and "Gong Xiang Ma Tu Juan" are all excellent works of this kind.
What the Forbidden City witnessed is not the narcissism of a single cultural form, but the exchange and integration of cultures from all over the world. The culture of the Forbidden City is not only China’s, but also the world’s. The cultures of various countries exchange, communicate and blend here, and the Chinese civilization exchanges and learns from each other with other civilizations in the world. This eclectic and open-minded attitude towards world civilization fully embodies the inclusiveness and peace of Chinese civilization, and highlights the spirit of Chinese civilization, which never forgets the original, absorbs foreign countries and faces the future.
The crystallization of civilization: from royal palace to "people’s museum"
The Palace Museum was established in 1925, based on the imperial palaces and their collections in Ming and Qing Dynasties. At the same time, it has the characteristics of architecture museum, art museum and history museum, which conforms to the internationally recognized basic principles of "original site protection" and "original display" and is a profound historical and cultural treasure house. With the Revolution of 1911, the abdication of the Qing Emperor Puyi in 1912, the establishment of the Antiquities Exhibition Center in 1914 and the establishment of the Palace Museum on October 10, 1925, the Forbidden City gradually changed from an old royal palace to a "people’s museum" open to the public.
The early development of the Palace Museum was very difficult. On October 8, 1928, the Council of the Palace Museum was established, which put the Palace Museum on the right track. The 27-member Council of the Palace Museum has gathered people from all walks of life. Since then, the Palace Museum has taken on the mission of researching, protecting and inheriting Chinese excellent traditional culture.
In 1987, the Forbidden City became the first batch of world cultural heritage in China, and the protection and research of the Forbidden City entered the fast lane, among which the most important project was to build a cultural relic warehouse. In the past, cultural relics were preserved in buildings on the ground, so it was difficult to control the temperature and humidity in an ideal state, and it was impossible to completely resist air pollution and dust. It was urgent to find a safe home for cultural relics. At the end of 1980s, the construction of the first and second phase of the cultural relics warehouse was started, and it was built in succession in 1990s. Most precious cultural relics moved to the underground cultural relics warehouse, and now the third phase of the cultural relics warehouse is under construction, and the conditions of the ground warehouse are gradually improved. In the new century, the centennial overhaul of the Forbidden City has been put on the agenda, and it is the central government’s decision-making that has enabled us to see such a magnificent Forbidden City today. In the 1990s, many buildings in the Palace Museum were dilapidated and the environment was poor. After a hundred years of overhaul, together with the cultural relics inventory that lasted for seven years and the Ping ‘an Palace Museum project started in 2013, most of the ancient buildings in the Palace Museum were properly protected, and most of the cultural relics in the collection had a relatively stable preservation environment.
Inheritance and Development: The Times Value and Mission of the Forbidden City
The important speech delivered by the Supreme Leader General Secretary at the forum on cultural inheritance and development made a comprehensive, systematic and in-depth exposition on a series of major theoretical and practical issues concerning the inheritance and development of Chinese culture. He emphasized that China has a long history and Chinese civilization is profound. Only through a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the history of Chinese civilization can we more effectively promote the creative transformation and innovative development of Chinese excellent traditional culture, more effectively promote the cultural construction of Socialism with Chinese characteristics and build the modern civilization of the Chinese nation.
The people of the Forbidden City in the new era have taken over the baton of their predecessors and moved on, and gradually formed the guiding ideology of running the hospital in the new era: guided by the supreme leader Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought in the new era, they adhere to the cultural relics work policy of "protection first, strengthening management, excavating value, making effective use of cultural relics" and truly and completely protect and carry forward the excellent Chinese traditional culture carried by the Forbidden City responsibly. Supported by the construction of "Safe Palace Museum, Academic Palace Museum, Digital Palace Museum and Vitality Palace Museum", the Palace Museum will be built into a world-class museum, a model of world cultural heritage protection, a leader in the integration of culture and tourism, and a Chinese cultural reception room for civilized exchanges and mutual learning.
This guiding ideology defines the mission of the Palace Museum, as well as the path and measures to fulfill the mission. We must promote the high-quality development of the protection of the world cultural heritage in the Forbidden City through all advanced scientific and technological means and the construction of "Safe Forbidden City, Academic Forbidden City, Digital Forbidden City and Vitality Forbidden City" to realize the permanent preservation and sustainable inheritance of the heritage.
"Safe Forbidden City" is the most basic and primary task. Through the construction of "Safe Forbidden City", we can better implement the idea of "protection first", make full use of science and technology and management means, and truly and completely protect the Forbidden City, a cultural heritage shared by mankind. The "Safe Palace" project was started in 2013 and lasted for 8 years. On the basis of the successful practice of the "Overall Renovation and Protection Project of the Forbidden City", the "Safe Forbidden City" project is a more macroscopic protection engineering system, which aims to further solve the major security problems existing in the Forbidden City, such as fire hazards, theft hazards, earthquake hazards, natural damage of collections, cultural relics warehouses, infrastructure hazards, and audience safety hazards. At the same time, the construction of the North Campus, the basement renovation project, the infrastructure renovation project, the world cultural heritage monitoring project, the Forbidden City, etc. are defined. Since the implementation of the "Safe Forbidden City" project, it has made outstanding achievements, made positive contributions to the construction and development of the Palace Museum, and also marked that the concept of the protection of the Forbidden City from the perspective of "complete Forbidden City" has entered a mature stage.
The "Academic Forbidden City" is the core. From its establishment to today, the Palace Museum has always been academic. With an open and inclusive attitude, we have promoted in-depth research in many fields such as the ancient architecture of the Forbidden City, cultural relics collection, archives of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, court history and culture, and cultural heritage protection, and a large number of academic achievements have been published. We will build a platform for academic exchange, academic publication and personnel training, so that more outstanding talents can gather in the Palace Museum, a big family of academic research. Solidly promote the academic investigation and exchange projects such as the "Talents Program", "The Forbidden City and the Ancient Palace Studies" and "The Forbidden City Scholars Talk about the Forbidden City", and hold the "Workshop for Ancient Palace Studies University Teachers" to attract teachers from universities and research institutions at home and abroad to participate in the study of the ancient palace studies, so that the outstanding value of the world cultural heritage of the Forbidden City can be more completely explained and more "flowing water from the source" can be injected into the construction of the modern civilization of the Chinese nation. We also launched an "open project" to invite scholars and professionals from all over the society to study the architecture and cultural relics of the Forbidden City. There were 40 projects in the first phase and 30 projects in this year, which greatly expanded the academic team and academic vision of the Forbidden City research. A stable and energetic academic team that conducts multidisciplinary research around the excellent Chinese traditional culture carried by the Forbidden City, and a number of open and inclusive academic exchange platforms.A series of high-quality academic achievements will promote the academic research of the Palace Museum in the direction of integrity, systematism and openness.
The "Digital Forbidden City" is the support. Now is the era of informationization, digitalization and even artificial intelligence, and the Forbidden City has firmly grasped the pulse of this era. The construction of "Digital Forbidden City" can be traced back to more than 20 years ago, starting from the earliest website and database construction. Today, it has formed a huge digital forbidden city system from the basic layer, resource layer to application layer. In this process, we continue to cooperate with enterprises, universities and international institutions to ensure that the Digital Palace Museum will bring forth new ideas in digital collection of cultural relics, database construction and data management. The Palace Museum digitizes its collection of cultural relics at the rate of 70,000 to 80,000 pieces per year. Up to now, it has completed the basic image shooting of more than 900,000 pieces of cultural relics. At present, the digital cultural relics library has published more than 100,000 high-definition images of cultural relics. We offer online digital thematic exhibitions, including "Famous Paintings of the Forbidden City", "Panoramic Forbidden City" and "Digital Treasure Pavilion". This year, we also launched the multilingual website of the Palace Museum, which covers the languages of the five permanent members of the United Nations and will be gradually expanded in the future. You can also enter the world of the digital Forbidden City through the Forbidden City applet, enjoy the beautiful pictures of the Forbidden City, and see the architecture and related explanations of the Forbidden City. At the same time, almost every exhibition in the Forbidden City has a supporting online exhibition, and the audience can use the Forbidden City exhibition App.Enjoy the fun of immersive viewing in the cloud. We have also launched new media products such as "Forbidden City 365", "Playing around the Forbidden City", "Famous Paintings of the Forbidden City" and "Daily Forbidden City", and the digital exhibition and research venue of cultural relics in full digital form "The Digital Hall of the Great Hall of the Forbidden City" will soon be opened to the public. Keeping pace with the development of the times, it is one of our efforts to creatively transform the achievements of academic research into products that people like and can have an impact, so as to better spread them out.
"Vitality Palace" is the purpose. Let cultural relics live, that is, let the value contained in cultural relics live, and let the culture carried by cultural relics combine with this era to form the culture of the times. The first way to live is to be open, so that people can walk into the Forbidden City, a world cultural heritage museum, and experience the vastness, continuity and tolerance of Chinese civilization on the spot. According to statistics, from 1949 to — In 2022, the Forbidden City received 468 million visitors, including 2012 — In 2022, the audience was 142 million in this decade. We should not only protect cultural relics, but also let the audience have a good tour experience. We can only limit the carrying capacity of tourists. In order to let more people visit the Forbidden City, we let people see it in the cloud through various online exhibitions and digital communication. Digital theme exhibitions such as "The Riverside Scene on the Qingming Festival 3.0", "Strings for the Road" and "Discovery of hall of mental cultivation" have enabled the multiculturalism carried by the cultural relics of the Forbidden City to take the wings of digital technology and enter thousands of households. We also create dance dramas, musicals, TV feature films, etc. by means of modern art to fully present the colorful culture of the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City, in conjunction with relevant institutions, launched a stage play "Only Green", a children’s musical "You Duan", a TV special program "On the New Forbidden City", "Poetry and Painting China" and "The Forbidden City, Polite", which endowed Chinese excellent traditional culture with new forms of expression and connotation of the times.The Forbidden City also launched high-quality popular science books for young people, such as I’m going to the Forbidden City, the 24 solar terms of the Forbidden City, and The Great Baby of the Forbidden City, telling the stories in the Forbidden City with pictures and pictures, and conveying the socialist core values and growth wisdom by displaying the excellent Chinese traditional culture.
Telling the story of China to the international community is a very important mission of the Palace Museum. In the past ten years, the Forbidden City has exhibited 52 cultural relics abroad, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and participated in 21 cultural relics exhibitions organized by overseas cooperative institutions and China Cultural Relics Exchange Center, involving 32 countries and regions (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan). At the same time, the Forbidden City actively participated in the "One Belt, One Road" national archaeological project, and cooperated with world-renowned archaeological research institutions such as Kenya National Museum, Kenya Kishi University, and the Archaeological Department of Durham University in the United Kingdom to carry out archaeological investigations and field excavations, so as to inherit the spirit of Silk Road in archaeological cooperation and promote the exchange of civilizations and mutual learning. We have also held international academic forums such as the "Taihe Forum", implemented the "Taihe Scholar Plan" to promote equal dialogue, exchange and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign scholars, built an international joint laboratory and training center, and passed on the development achievements of Chinese culture and contemporary China to the world through personnel exchanges and media publicity brought by cultural "please come in", so that the world can see the three-dimensional China.
The Forbidden City culture contributes cultural nutrients to Chinese modernization, which endows it with modern strength. In the new stage of development, the Palace Museum will adhere to the guidance of the supreme leader’s cultural thought and take a more open and inclusive attitude to protect and inherit the cultural heritage shared by mankind. At the same time, we should earnestly shoulder the new cultural mission, promote the implementation of global civilization initiatives with the cultural charm of the Forbidden City on the world stage, and contribute China wisdom and Chinese strength to building a community of human destiny.
(Guangming. com reporter Zhang Lijun finishing)
